Public Procurement: Data Offshoring
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I refer back to my initial Answer, which is that each contracting authority should carefully consider, and make risk-based decisions on, whether and where data can be offshored. We can get really hung up on offshoring, onshoring or where the data is stored, but we have to make sure that all data and cybersecurity are central to how we move forward with this type of procurement. This is why the Government are introducing a cybersecurity and resilience Bill, which will help ensure our cybersecurity for the future.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, further to the question from my noble friend Lord Browne, I think that the response from the MoD is not satisfactory. These Belarusians, although they might not have had access to highly classified information, were writing software that would be used within our nuclear deterrent. This cannot be satisfactory. Can the MoD give an answer, maybe through the Minister, to say that this is no longer allowed to happen? We all know how you can use software in various clever ways to cause real damage.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I will speak to my noble friend Lord Coaker and ask him to provide a letter responding to that point.
Global IT Outage
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
All relevant departments will take part in the review, and I will feed back the specific points made to the Cabinet Office and colleagues in the Department of Health. Going back to the previous point about the widespread use of specific software systems, this needs to be taken seriously as we move forward with the proposed legislation.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, one area of weakness is PNT, so how will we ensure that we still have traditional navigational and time signals of the correct type to enable all our systems to work? Will we maintain a task group to work in this area to try to resolve it by next year?